“By the airs he takes. Odd’s life!
if we’d had the Duke of Cumberland aboard, he’d
not have carried himself the stiffer. From the
day we shipped him, not so much as a word has he passed
with one of us, save to threat Mr. Higgins’ life,
when he knocked him down with a belaying pin for his
da—­for his impertinence. And he nothing
but an indentured servant not able to write his name
and like as not with a sheriff at his heels.”
The captain’s sudden volubility could mean either
dislike or mere curiosity.

“Dost think he’s of the wrong colour?”
asked the merchant, looking with more interest at
the covenant.

“’T is the dev—­’t is
beyond me to say what he is. A good man at the
ropes, but a da—­a Dutchman for company.
’Twixt he and the bog-trotters we shipped at
Cork Harbour ’t was the dev—­’t
was the scuttiest lot I ever took aboard ship.”
The rum was getting into the captain’s tongue,
and making his usual vocabulary difficult to keep
under.

“Have ye no artisans among the Irish?”

“Not so much as one who knows the differ between
his two hands.”

“’T is too bad of Gorman not to pick better,”
growled the merchant. “There’s a
great demand for Western settlers, and Mr. Lambert
Meredith writes me to pick him up a good man at horses
and gardening, without stinting the price. ’T
would be something to me to oblige him.”

’T is a parcel of raw teagues except for the
Bristol man.”

“And ye think he’s of the light-fingered
gentry?”

“As for that,” said the captain, “I
know nothing about him. But he came to your factor
and wanted to take the first ship that cleared, and
seemed in such a mortal pother that Mr. Horsley suspicioned
something, and gave me a slant to look out for him.
And all the time we lay off Bristol, my fine fellow
kept himself well out of sight.”

“Come,” said the merchant, rising, “we’ll
have a look at him. Mr. Meredith is not a man
to be disappointed if it can be avoided.”

Once on deck the captain led the way to the forepart
of the ship, where, standing by himself, and, like
the other emigrants, looking over the rail, but, unlike
them, looking not at the city, but at the water, stood
a fellow of a little over medium height, with broad
shoulders and a well-shaped back, despite the ill
form his ragged coat tried to give it. At a slap
on the shoulder he turned about, showing to the merchant
a ruddy, sea-tanned skin, light brown hair, gray eyes,
and a chin and mouth hidden by a two months’
beard, still too bristly to give him other than an
unkempt, boorish look.

“Here ’s the rogue,” announced the
captain, with a suggestion of challenge in the speech,
as if he would like to have the epithet resented.
But the man only regarded the officer with steady,
inexpressive eyes.

“Now, my good fellow,” asked the merchant,
“to what kind of work have ye been bred?”